: Re: How to write female characters with agency? I'm attempting to write a novel, an historical fiction with a small fantasy component (time travel through a portal). The travelers (main characters)

@Tiffany377

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I think that one fundamental question has to be answered (implicitly in your mind, not necessarily explicit in the novel), and it is this: are men and women on average different in their psychologies (in your fictional world)?

You said that "she is feminine," but you have to figure out what "femininity" means. One option is that of @Amadeus :

Wouldn't most of what we think of as being "feminine" either disappear, or be universally adopted by both genders? I don't think there is much about "femininity" that is inherent in having female body parts. I think nearly all of it is a learned product and attitude of current culture.

For reasons that are off-topic to this question I find this position completely anti-scientific, but it is certainly a possibility in your fictional world. If this is the case, then all these gender roles would be completely foreign to both the man and the woman.

Another possibility is that there are differences (in your fictional world). You describe your "post woke" attitudes as:

the mentality of people in their time and area is one of equality, acceptance of differences, and egalitarianism.

This means that your futuristic people would accept differences between men and women, not look down upon the fact that they are different. This means that even in the futuristic world, there would be certain traits that were considered "feminine" or "masculine." Not in the sense that they are enforced, but simply in the sense that they are more common in one sex. A trait being "feminine" or "masculine" would not be seen as either positive or negative, it would be purely descriptive.

If there are differences between men and women, then this has tremendous implications for how the protagonists would react to experiencing the past. They would likely simultaneously abhor how these gender roles were enforced upon people, and that people lacked freedom to pursue their individual goals, but they would also recognize similarities with their own world.

Let's take a purely hypothetical example. Imagine if even the futuristic world that it was still be the case that women did most of the direct childcare. In plenty of couples it might be that the man did most of the direct childcare, but it was still much more common in relationships that it was the woman. This reality was not due to enforced roles, but rather because couples divided labor in ways which made both happy. If this is the case, they would react badly to the strict enforcement of this role, but they would not be surprised that, if there were any gender roles, that this would be one of them.

As for writing a female character that has agency in this world; I actually don't think that's too difficult. A character with agency has the following traits: they have their own personality, interests, goals and desires, and they behave in a way that is informed by their personality. They take actions to pursue their goals. There may be many obstacles in their way, such as the gender roles in the past, but this means that they would react negatively to those unfair obstacles. They would try to achieve the best they could, given their circumstances and given their personality.

It is possible that your female protagonist has many classic feminine virtues; for example, she may actively enjoy childrearing and cooking. However, being robbed of the choice would still not make her happy. All of us have various goals and interests, and whenever she wanted to spend some time on some of her other interests, she would feel dismayed by the fact that she had to spent time taking care of children, say. But it might be that she would find it amazing that all the other women in the town had all these tips and tricks for making cooking easier (which is one of her interests).

Given that your female character has agency, you need to consider how she would ultimately react to this situation. This depends on her individual personality. Some people ending up in her situtation would be loud and start demonstrating publicly. Some would be slighly less loud, but they would perhaps still chat privately with the other women regarding how unfair some of these roles are. This might still proliferate with the other women also starting to complain, and this might eventually lead to protest. It might also be that she is more careful in her personality. In this case she might not protest out loud, but she will try to avoid/escape from bad experiences. Does she, perhaps, actively try to avoid specific people who are particularly bad with regards to their gender attitudes?

Just think about what she would do, given her personality, and given the situation.

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